It seems that everywhere else in America (and probably Canada too) it’s beaver killing season. Reports from New York, and Illinois and South Carolina bemoan the dastardly fiends and praise the heroic johnny-come-deadly beaver trapper who saved the town by snagging the culprits. So much so that this is the cover photo in this mornings Lincoln Courier.
LINCOLN —
For residents who live in the Brainard Branch area in Lincoln they can breathe collective relief sighs in regards to the problems they have with beavers.
Lincoln Streets and Alley superintendent Tracy Jackson said his department has continued to tear down many of the dams the animals make and has been battling this since the early spring.
Jackson said he is grateful to the efforts of Troy Hanger, of Lincoln, for his tenacity in wanting to rid the area of this problem.
Hanger, a licensed trapper, says the 62-pound beaver was not an easy catch.
“He avoided me for two weeks. I would put three or four beaver casters out to attract them by scent and I would see the trees chewed but he wouldn’t go near the trap,” said Hanger who started this project on Nov. 5, the first day of the trapping season.
Articles like this make me very discouraged that we will ever get to a more intelligent place in beaver policy. On mornings like today when there are so many stories of carnage that I get to pick and choose between varieties of beaver stupid I worry that it is hopeless and it will never get better. The beaver moon was named because its a good time to remember to kill beavers, and that’s true for everywhere in America.
Except Martinez.
Perhaps it was because it was the night of the Beaver Moon. Whatever it was, two of Martinez’s beavers made an appearance at sundown Wednesday while a dozen onlookers watched. The crowd had gathered on the bridge near the city’s Amtrak station downtown at 5 p.m. under the November full moon known as the Beaver Moon or Frost Moon. About 5:15 p.m., the first beaver swam out from its den along the banks of Alhambra Creek. He disappeared, but a few minutes later another beaver came out, swam near one of the colony’s dams, grabbed a vine and brought it back to the den. The event, organized by the community group Worth A Dam, was designed as a celebration of the beaver community in town.
Worth A Dam. Changing the world one beaver at a time.
